Sunday, November 10, 2013

The Europeans have decided that they should embrace renewables while here in USA, we are going fracking. Right now, there are those who think that we have made the right choice. I seriously doubt it. When the real bills for fracking come due—just in time to notice that this is a very expensive way to extract fossil fuels from the earth—I am pretty sure that folks will come to the opposite conclusion. But this piece comes from Business Insider and they are notorious for taking short-term views of almost everything.

There is SOME validity to the arguments that Europe's push to meet their pretty ambitious emissions targets has indeed made electricity expensive and that expensive electricity has and will cause a world of hurt to Europe's poor. In my mind, this says that the real problem is trying to meet some tough carbon emission standards using neoliberal economics—the flaw isn't the attempt to cut down on carbon pollution but the crazy idea that everything worth doing should be profitable. Veblen called the folks who use the monetary mechanisms to disrupt the necessary workings of an economy "industrial saboteurs." It is hard to imagine a more accurate description.

One can only hope that these conditions are temporary because it is a disaster if they are not.

Infrastructure improvements are also set to come with a $1 trillion price tag through the end of the decade, Reuters says.

"The cost of funding government policies for renewable energy, social support and energy efficiency is increasing faster than any other part of an energy bill," Paul Massara, chief executive of RWE npower told Reuters.

And Reuters' columnist John Kemp says Labour Leader Ed Miliband recently "launched a metaphorical grenade" into the country's clean energy consensus when he promised ratepayers' bills would be frozen if his party comes to power in 2015.

"The squeeze in real incomes has made customers and voters much more sensitive to the impact of rising utility bills," Kemp writes. "And bills have risen so much for so long that increases are starting to spark public resistance."

Some countries have already turned back to coal, the price of which has fallen because of the continent's struggling economy and the rise of natural gas in the U.S., which has boosted coal exports. European coal generation increased 6% in 2011 YOY and 2% in 2012 YOY.

Of course, that negates the whole point of the climate change policies.

And some, like the Poles, argue the higher costs are working as planned, since emissions are coming down. “Growth will return and the price will find its equilibrium again," the FT reported a Polish government memo as saying. "No administrative meddling is needed or else we might create the impression that such measures are standard practice.” more

Meanwhile, uncertainty in the global marketplace has produced an operating loss for the world's only pure wind turbine investment opportunity. So Vestas is cutting employment and other standard responses to operating losses. This, at a time when the world should be filling their order books.

Wind turbine maker Vestas posts loss, raises guidance

06 NOVEMBER 2013

AFP - Danish wind turbine maker Vestas posted a quarterly loss on Wednesday but raised its 2013 forecast as it continued with a restructuring programme which has cut thousands of jobs.

"The free cash flow for 2013 is now expected to be 500 to 700 million euros ($675 to $945 million) compared to the earlier expectation of a free cash flow of minimum 200 million euros," the company said in a statement.

Free cash flow is an important measure of the rate at which a company can generate cash surplus to operating and existing investment requirements.

"This is driven by higher earnings, lower investments and better working capital management."

The Aarhus-based company also raised the full-year guidance for margins on earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) before special items to two percent from one percent.

The troubled company posted a third-quarter loss of 87 million euros -- its ninth quarterly loss in a row -- compared with analyst expectations of a four million euro profit, and a 175 million loss in the same period last year.